Don’t count Friendster out yet.
The pioneering social network, surpassed by MySpace and Facebook in most of the world, is still going strong in Asia, and now it plans to build on its success there. On Tuesday, the company will announce a $20 million investment round and a new chief executive, Richard Kimber, the regional managing director of South Asia for Google.
The funding round is led by IDG Ventures and includes past Friendster backers like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital.
Friendster, based in San Francisco, helped the concept of social networking gain broad acceptance before it nearly foundered amid technical problems and management chaos. It says it has more than 75 million users, though many who signed up in the early days have not used it for some time. It also says it is the top social network in Asia, with 33 million monthly unique visitors from the region -– twice the amount any other social network.
Beyond expanding in Asia, one clue to Friendster’s future plans may be found in its description of itself in this latest news release. Friendster “has a growing portfolio of patents granted to the company on social networking, with more expected over the next several months.”
Friendster v. Facebook in federal court, perhaps?
19 Comments
Friendster?
Oh, I remember Friendster. Didn’t people use to use that back in 2002? Haven’t touched it in years.
— John FlemmingI still get frequent “friend requests” in my email from Friendster. Every single one is spam/porn. Until Friendster management fixes this they will be worse than useless…they will be a major annoyance.
— byrdland49I was looking at MySpace the other considering how I could use it to support my internet startup. I was unimpressed to be honest. Maybe Friendster is the way to go.
— implui just made a fiendster account recently cause i was bored with nothing to do, its quite lame, i reiceved like 30 friend requests within a day from all these asian girls preaching to me about god and how i should covert to christianity and read the bible. this site is ridiculous and very very hard to navigate. so is facebook, i hate how all the social network sites attempt to be one another, myspace should not have apps, an the new facebook should not look like myspace.
— Darius SanchezThis company is destined to fail. Too many people had shoddy experiences with Friendster and remember it (and are now fully committed to other sites). The site never worked, and it took FOREVER to download a page, upload pics, etc.
— kalWhen will people realize that social networking is not worth anything because if it ever vanishes, users don’t actually lose anything of value because they haven’t spent anything?
It’s like losing a parking space–it wasn’t really mine to begin with.
This is the nature of modern investment bubbles; people throwing money at concepts they don’t understand, like technology and real estate.
— MitchPI don’t think the web is very forgiving. You snooze, you lose.
— KelleyI don’t use Friendster or Myspace, etc. But I do know that what this article says is true. Friendster is insanely popular in parts of Asia.
Not really sure why. Kind of like VHS vs Betamax. VHS won in North America and Europe and Betamax became popular in parts of Asia.
Betamax was a technically superior format (but was outmanuevered or outmarketed in the North American market). Not sure if Friendster is superior to Facebook technically or feature-wise.
— RCFriendster was the first out of the gate, and as such has a very healthy software patent portfolio. All the other Social Network programs will subjected to this portfolio to determine who owns what.
— BayonI think they still have a shot at whatever it is that social networking is going to produce at the end of the day.
There is plenty of room for social networking sites because the ideal business models are still being figured out.
In many ways, it is the dotcom days all over again, except that its a lot easier to build these technologies these days. Glad to see Friendster get back in the news. More social networking the merrier!
— PranThe timing of this decision by Friendster is interesting, taking into account the recent redesign of Facebook that is attracting a great deal of negative attention from most of its users. Being one of them, I can say that the new layout is unappealing to someone who has been using the site for a while with no qualms as to its design as it was. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I know there are several Facebook groups now with names such as “We Hate the New Facebook Layout”, containing discussions in which people are saying that they will leave Facebook in favor of other social networking sites if the new layout is made mandatory for all users. Perhaps Friendster has caught wind up this and is hoping to gain new users?
— KaylaFriendster has been a useful tool for U.S. immigrants like myself to get in touch with old friends: Filipinos expats across the globe. It’s the first social networking tool out there, and tech-savvy Asians are often loyal first-adopters. In the U.S. and in the Western world, there’s a tendency to jump to the new, sexy, highly marketed thing, even though it may not offer any real added value. Note: those folks on this thread who report getting only porn requests on Friends may not have real friends anyway.
— MHFriendster is popular in Asia at least partly because it’s available in a number of Asian languages. The last time I checked there was no Thai. or Malay version of Facebook. With little real value difference between the two services, wouldn’t you rather use the one that spoke your language?
— ClarkI met my fiancee through Friendster. I am glad to see that it is getting an new round of finance.
— MFBI have friends on three major social networking sites. The most attractive and appealing site in my opinion is Friendster.
:-)
— JCto be honest, friendster’s loss of interest in North America is turned a GREAT success in Asia and South America. This is because the name itself is easily used as a means of “befriending” people through the internet. Because of Friendster’s ability to located people across nations, Friendster users are eager to find their friends, relatives and family more easily by just using one uniform website—-the first social networking site and only one that still values extended networking features——-Friendster.
— Lloyd BaltazarFriendster is the only social networking site I use. It is simple to navigate. It is zen as compared with “fancier” ones like MySpace, Facebook, and Multiply. My elementary/high school/college friends are there as well as my past colleagues. Kudos to those who have invested money.
— EvaI use friendster and will forever be loyal to it. Most of the people I met through the network were old friends, cousins and classmates from all over the globe. It is not just popular in Asia, but it is also popular among Asians scattered around the globe be it in New Zealand, USA, Canada, Russia,London, Tibet, Bangladesh., moon,mars,pluto…..Who cares which network is more popular among a certain group of people…as long as it serves it s purpose as a social network…it is our own individual choice!!
— diwata akoFriendster has connected long lost friends and relatives in the Philippines. I found my distant relatives and long lost friends through friendster connections. It doesn’t matter whether you are a friendster, my space, facebook etc. user. what counts is how you get in touch with people.
— dante